Inside the Pages Archives

IP#310 Sonja Corbitt – Fearless on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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No one swings the Sword of Truth quite like Sonja Corbitt; she is amazing! “Fearless: Conquer Your Demons and Love with Abandon” is a Catholic Women’s guide to spiritual warfare! We cannot recommend this book more highly as a balanced, thorough, and inspiring approach to the subject of “battling the enemy.”

You can find the book here

From the book description:

In Unleashed, Corbitt identified the spiritual wounds that reveal themselves through the harmful patterns and relationships in our lives. In Fearless, she offers scriptural tools that help us understand and conquer the demons of sin, Satan, self, and sloth. She helps us recognize the methods the devil uses to keep us enslaved, and she immerses us in a profound contemplation of love, which is the only possible weapon against the spirit of fear.

In this book, you will come to understand

the spiritual roots of fear, depression, and anxiety;
ways to “abide” in Christ and find freedom from fear;

signs of negative spiritual suggestion and influence in your daily life;

the deep, personal lies we believe that keep us slaves to fear;
specific truths about the limitations of Satan’s power and character;
the “pieces” of spiritual armor that protect us from fear; and
how to rest fully in God’s goodness and love.

Each chapter contains features that will make it a popular resource for personal and group study: review notes, an invitation to prayer, and a series of probing questions (called God Prompts) that encourage you to explore the content in a deeply personal way. Fearless offers encouragement to those who are anxious or fearful about the future and who seek a spiritual solution.

IP#3 Sr. Ann Shields – “To Be Like Jesus” on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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It was great to talk with Sr. Ann Shields, of “Food for the Journey”, about her new book “To Be Like Jesus – Inspiration From the Gospel of Luke” . In her maternal nurturing way she encourages us to “feed” on the great gift of God’s Holy Word.

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

God’s plan for your life is not as mysterious or unknowable as you might think. As Sister Ann Shields demonstrates in her probing reflections on the Gospel of Luke, the key to knowing what God is asking of you is to discover, first, who God is. If you are willing to spend time daily in his presence, ruminating on his word as it comes to you in Scripture, he will reveal himself and help you make the choices that conform to his will for your life.

To Be Like Jesus will enable you to distinguish God’s voice from the voices, noise and distractions of the world. As you let his word soak into your soul, you’ll find there the power to surrender to him and play your part in building his kingdom.

IP#296 Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J. – God So Loved the World pt. 2 on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

We continue with part 2 of our discussion with Fr. Spitzer….

For part 1 of our conversation visit here

In our conversation with Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., we enter into “God So Loved the World: Clues to Our Transcendent Destiny from the Revelation of Jesus“, which is the third installment of his “Happiness, Suffering, and Transcendence” series. Not only is Fr. Spitzer a brilliant theologian, but he has the heart of caring pastor who understands the needs of the questing minds of so many lost and wandering souls. With an extraordinary grasp of philosophy, theology and cosmology, he is able to take complicated concepts and mix them with joy, beauty, and a grace-filled enthusiasm without doing damage to the subject matter. In this volume, he addresses “What is LOVE”, “Who is LOVE”, and maybe in an even deeper way, “The why of LOVE”. Of course we know, “God is Love”, but God as a Father? God as a Son? God as Holy Spirit? How is the mind to grasp such penetrating Truth? And more importantly, how is the heart to perceive this eternal divine mystery?

We were able to meet with Fr. Spitzer for this discussion at his offices located at the Magis Center in Garden Grove, CA.

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You can find the book here

From the book description:

In this volume the brilliant Fr. Spitzer probes in detail the major question that if an intelligent Creator God – manifest in logical proofs, scientific evidence, and near death experiences – who is the source of our desire for the sacred, and the transcendental desires for truth, love, goodness, and beauty, would want to reveal himself to us personally and ultimately.

He then shows this is reasonable not only in light of our interior experience of a transcendent Reality, but also that a completely intelligent Reality is completely positive–implying its possession of a completely positive virtue – namely “love”, defined as agape.

This leads to the question whether God might be unconditionally loving, and if he is, whether he would want to make a personal appearance to us in a perfect act of empathy – face to face. After examining the rational evidence for this, he reviews all world religions to see if there is one that reveals such a God – an unconditionally loving God who would want to be with us in perfect empathy. This leads us to the extraordinary claim of Jesus Christ who taught that God is “Abba”, the unconditionally loving Father.

Jesus’ claims go further, saying that He is also unconditional love, and that his mission is to give us that love through an act of complete self-sacrifice. He also claims to be the exclusive Son of the Father, sent by God to save the world, and the one who possesses divine power and authority. The rest of the book does an in-depth examination of the evidence for Jesus’ unconditional love of sinners, his teachings, his miracles, and his rising from the dead. As well as the evidence for Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit that enabled his disciples to perform miracles in his name, and evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit today.

IP#163 Vivian Dudro – Evelyn Waugh’s “Edmund Campion” on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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IP#281 Vivian Dudro - Meriol Trevor's "Shadows and Images" on Inside the Pages 1 — Vivian Dudro

I love the writing of Evelyn Waugh…his prose are some of the best of our time, if not of all time. And when that talent is used to pen a biography of the heroic English martyr, Edmund Campion, a tremendous blessing has been given to all who glean it’s pages. What a story…what a life. We are joined once again by the wonderful Vivian Dudro to discuss this incredible work, as well as the life and times of this great saint.

You can find the book here

From the description:

Evelyn Waugh presented his biography of St. Edmund Campion, the Elizabethan poet, scholar, and gentleman who became the haunted, trapped and murdered priest as “a simple, perfectly true story of heroism and holiness.”

But it is written with a novelist’s eye for the telling incident and with all the elegance and feeling of a master of English prose. From the years ofsuccess as an Oxford scholar, to entry into the newly founded Society of Jesus and a professorship in Prague, Campion’s life was an inexorable progress towards the doomed mission to England. There followed pursuit, betrayal, a spirited defense of loyalty to the Queen, and a horrifying martyr’s death at Tyburn.

IP#196 Mark Brumley – “Knowing God” on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

It’s great to be joined once again by Mark Brumley, this time to discuss “Knowing God: God and the Human Condition” (previously titled God and the Human Mind) authored by the great Catholic writer, teacher, and publisher Frank Sheed. Written in 1966 during the time of the Second Vatican Council, Sheed addresses the most challenging questions the human mind can pose about God, without presenting answers in dry academic way. Instead, because of his gifted writing style, he engages the reader with a desire to discover “mystery” in all its forms.

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You can find the book here

“This book is vintage Sheed: clear, commonsensical, and convincing. This is the Sheed of the two masterpieces of apologetics Theology and Sanity and Society and Sanity. But this is also a new Sheed: older and wiser, more practical and human–the post-Vatican II Sheed. I mean this in all the good senses, the John Paul II senses: he is sensitive to the dangers of “the good old days”: verbalism, “dead orthodoxy,” rationalism, deism, what Sheed calls “theometry” instead of theology: an abstract, formal theological geometry that only wants to define terms and win debating points. Instead, this book is a kind of theological midrash, a deepening, a spelunking in the caves of the deepest mysteries with the clear light of honest words–honest with heart as well as head. It unites dogmatic theology with lived religion. It is precisely the breath of fresh air that Pope John XXIII opened the windows for, and in terms the layman can clearly grasp. —– Peter Kreeft, Author, Because God is Real

IP#295 Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J. – God So Loved the World pt.1 on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

We were able to meet with Fr. Spitzer for this discussion at his offices located at the Magis Center in Garden Grove, CA.

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You can find the book here

From the book description:

In this volume the brilliant Fr. Spitzer probes in detail the major question that if an intelligent Creator God – manifest in logical proofs, scientific evidence, and near death experiences – who is the source of our desire for the sacred, and the transcendental desires for truth, love, goodness, and beauty, would want to reveal himself to us personally and ultimately.

He then shows this is reasonable not only in light of our interior experience of a transcendent Reality, but also that a completely intelligent Reality is completely positive–implying its possession of a completely positive virtue – namely “love”, defined as agape.

This leads to the question whether God might be unconditionally loving, and if he is, whether he would want to make a personal appearance to us in a perfect act of empathy – face to face. After examining the rational evidence for this, he reviews all world religions to see if there is one that reveals such a God – an unconditionally loving God who would want to be with us in perfect empathy. This leads us to the extraordinary claim of Jesus Christ who taught that God is “Abba”, the unconditionally loving Father.

Jesus’ claims go further, saying that He is also unconditional love, and that his mission is to give us that love through an act of complete self-sacrifice. He also claims to be the exclusive Son of the Father, sent by God to save the world, and the one who possesses divine power and authority. The rest of the book does an in-depth examination of the evidence for Jesus’ unconditional love of sinners, his teachings, his miracles, and his rising from the dead. As well as the evidence for Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit that enabled his disciples to perform miracles in his name, and evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit today.

IP#175 – Dr. Adrian Walker – “Jesus of Nazareth” and Pope Benedict on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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On October 11, 2012, I began recording a series for Discerning Hearts with Dr. Adrian Walker, which we recorded at “Casa Balthasar,” a house of discernment for men located in Rome, Italy, where he was offering instruction. Adrian served as the English translator of Pope Benedict XVI’s book “Jesus of Nazareth.” With the historic events occurring with the Synod on the New Evangelization and start of the Year of Faith, we took some time aside to discuss that work and the influence of our Holy Father.

You can find the book here

The Casa, located in Rome, was founded in 1990 by a group of friends and is directed by Rev. Jacques Servais, S.J.; Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) has been closely associated with the Casa Balthasar from the very beginning as its Cardinal Protector.

IP#127 Dale Ahlquist – In Defense of Sanity on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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How can you possibly pick the best of G. K. Chesterton’s essays? Thank goodness for Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Aidan Mackey! Leading authorities on all things G. K. they’ve done it for us…and what a feast! From cheese to Jane Austen, barbarians to “what is right with the world,” G. K. covers it all. And the beauty is that it is still as relevant today as it was in his day…that’s the mark of genius, or more accurately, authentic wisdom and grace. It is always a joy to talk with Dale Ahlquist! He is the “good son” of G. K. Have fun with the listen and then read “In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton.”

You can find the book here

From the book description:

The variety of topics are astounding: barbarians, architects, mystics, ghosts, fireworks, rain, juries, gargoyles and much more. Plus a look at Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, George MacDonald, T.S. Eliot, and the Bible. All in that inimitable, formidable but always quotable style of GKC. Even more astounding than the variety is the continuity of Chesterton’s thought that ties everything together. A veritable feast for the mind and heart.

While some of the essays in this volume may be familiar, many of them are collected here for the first time, making their first appearance in over a century.

IP#228 Mary Eberstadt – How the West Really Lost God on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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“How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization” is a phenomenal book on this subject. Mary Eberstadt delivers a compelling theory about the decline of the Christian religion in the Western world. By the analysis of data on the family, from pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary culture in the West, she demonstrates how the natural family is the prime nurturing force for Christianity in society. When that family structure dissolves, so does the Christian religion in a culture and the rise of secularization is fostered. While presenting the problem, she also offers hope for the future. Another fascinating and provocative read by Mary Eberstadt!

You can find the book here

“An absolutely brilliant and strikingly fresh portrait of the ‘double-helix’ of faith and family, coupled with a potentially game-changing analysis of the why and how of secularization, all written with the sparkle and empathy that characterize the work of one of America’s premier social analysts.” —George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.

“Mary Eberstadt’s account of the synergistic relationship between the fracturing of the family and declining religiosity is both chilling and utterly convincing. No theorist of secularization has come close to Eberstadt in sociological insight or explanatory power.”

— Mary Ann Glendon, author of The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt

“A brilliant contribution to the really big question about the future of the West, and a pleasure to read.”—Rodney Stark, author of The Rise of Christianity

IP#302 Mike Aquilina – The World of Ben Hur on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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Thank you Mike Aquilina for complying an incredible book which explores “The World of Ben Hur”! One of the most popular Christian novels of all-time, “Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ” was penned by Lew Wallace and has served as the basis for plays, television productions, and several film adaptations for over 100 years. The 1959 production starring Charlton Heston still holds up as one of the finest cinematic masterpieces of all time! Mike not only covers the background of the book, the compelling conversion of its author, and it’s place in our cultural experience, but he also offers us the historical facts of the era and the Christian experience. As always, Mike’s writing is compelling, thoughtful and inspiring. A fantastic addition to the Mike Aquilina library of books!

You can find the book here

From the book description:

As you strip away centuries of accumulated tradition and look at Jesus of Nazareth with fresh eyes, you’ll also share with Ben-Hur the exciting, confusing, and life-changing experience of meeting Jesus for the first time. Armed with new wisdom and keen insights into the fascinating history of the Roman Empire, you’ll never watch Ben-Hur the same way again.

“Mike Aquilina has done a masterful job placing us in the life and times of Judah Ben-Hur and Jesus Christ. This is a must-read for any fan of Ben-Hur.”
Scott Hahn

IP#302 Mike Aquilina – The World of Ben Hur on Inside the Pages from Discerning Hearts on Vimeo.